Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Some Ladder residents claim St Ann's traffic scheme brings more traffic to Ladder - Do you agree? Have your say
The St Ann's Low Traffic neighbourhood started on 4 September 2023. The traffic order that put it in place lasts only for 18 months. The Council is therefore seeking resident views before making the scheme permanent.
Although personally I haven't experienced it, at a residents meeting (Ladder Community Safety Partnership) meeting last night, residents from roads including Fairfax and Beresford, expressed concern that the LTN had added to their traffic woes.
A consultation of the future of the scheme id now running until 20th September.
To add your voice for or against, click here.
Jim Leedham of the Harringay Ladder Healthy Streets group provided the following comparative traffic data which he tells me is direct from the Haringey Council website.
As of January 20232, just over a year after the LTN was introduced and getting on for two years ago from today, the data doesn't suggest that at that point Fairfax had seen a slight uptick and Beresford a slight uptick. Given the additional traffic on Green Lanes I wonder if those changes correspond, i.e. that northbound traffic was travelling further north to avoid queues on Green Lanes. Jim suggested the possibility that with the higher traffic levels on Green Lanes, queues on the rung roads may have worsened even if not absolute levels. This would certainly be felt by people living on those roads.
Tags for Forum Posts: consultation, traffic
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Deka Biski on
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The St Anns scheme is a good first step in traffic calming and has made a huge difference especially to the schools on St Anns Road which used to be surrounded on all sides by rat running and pollution (they of course still have the impact from St Anns Road itself!) I absolutely agree that the council should have done this more as an area wide scheme, linking cells of LTNs so that traffic isn’t simply pushed along. The ladder definitely needs an LTN of its own but arguing against the St Anns scheme isn’t the answer - surely this is an opportunity to push for more measures, more urgently and better joined up with neighbouring areas? If the St Anns scheme is reduced or removed, this would certainly weaken the case for LTNs in other areas. It would be great if neighbours could work together to demand more, rather than less!
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Absolutely spot on Deka. This is our chance to call for the council to be more ambitious not less. We need a scheme for the Ladder, we need 24 hour bus lanes on Green Lanes, we need better pedestrian crossings. Please respond to the consultations by Friday, 20 September and show support. Haringey is already so far behind neighbouring boroughs on this, let’s not got backwards
St Ann’s - https://stannsltn.commonplace
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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To be clear, Deka and Cat, this isn't a call for resistance to the St Ann's LTN. I've been pushing for traffic control locally for twenty years in a much less sympathetic environment, as posts on this forum will show.
Voices at the meeting were a real surprise to me. Personally, I've seen no discernible fall-out for the Ladder from the St Ann's LTN and so have been standing back from the consultation as I neither live in it nor am I impacted by it. However, clearly other Ladder residents think that they have been. Even though I haven't shared their experience, I know from personal experience how traffic can blight lives. Clearly those who spoke are feeling deeply affected. Their voices deserve to be heard.
Thank you for adding the argument in favour of the LTN. I see little chance that it won't be made permanent, but if tweaks can be made beyond the zone to help the likes of those who spoke this week, then they should be. Don't you think?
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Yes, 100%! I would encourage people to reply positively to the consultation while arguing that it needs to be extended and made coherent with a wider plan, including for Green Lanes and the Ladder.
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Permalink Reply by PaulG on
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I disagree that the LTN has either calmed or reduced traffic; indeed, traffic on the lower part of our street (Glenwood Road) has increased as a result of the restrictions. Furthermore, Green Lanes is, as predicted, as bad, if not worse, than ever. If an LTN was implemented on the Ladder it would presumably become worse still.
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As a fellow Glenwood resident I’d completely second that. The road was one of the quietest I’ve ever known before the LTN; now it’s not.
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Permalink Reply by Mavic Starfish on
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Survey completed, in favour
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Permalink Reply by Niall on
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Like most of us, I am in favour of less traffic, less pollution, better public transport and a healthier walking environment. My problem with LTNs is that they seek to implement a micro solution to transport/mobility problems that are, for the most part, anything but local. From what I have observed, this seems mostly down to the way the Boris Johnson government set up the funding for the scheme rather than failures of individual local authorities. Certainly in modern European cities, and elsewhere, there has been a more holistic approach with planning and investment that has produced outcomes with widespread and clear benefits and avoided the toxic and destructive debate so common here. As I said, who wouldn’t be in favour of less traffic, less pollution, better public transport and a healthier walking environment?
When Cllr Mike Hakata spoke at a virtual Harringay Ladder Healthy Streets meeting last year, I think the conclusion was that the council’s Ladder/Whightman Rd traffic flow data meant that an LTN for the Ladder was not currently viable (gridlock elsewhere), but a mostly pedestrianised, cafe culture, Green Lanes (with 24 hr bus Lanes) was far more promising. If I recall, Hugh attended and gave a report back on HoL?
The possibility of a relaxed, traffic free section of Green Lanes with trees, outside restaurants and reliable free flowing buses and bike lanes will be of real benefit to us all and could transform our local experience, so here’s hoping progress is made on that.
Of course that would presumably mean Ladder roads would see traffic diverted from there, but residents on Green Lanes where pollution is heaviest, those who rely on buses/cycle and those of us who walk there regularly will see a real difference. Supporters of LTNs say that within a few years traffic flows on boundary roads go back to normal, so the Ladder/Whightman Rd impact will likely be temporary.
Is this the way forward for our Local Traffic Neighbourhood?
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Good post, although I would argue the problems are both local and non-local.
What I mean by that is that, yes, much of Harringay's traffic is cars and vans etc which are passing through the area (and we know that drivers will, reasonably enough, choose the quietest and thus quickest routes, which will often take them through residential areas).
However, it has long seemed to me that many drivers in our area are not passing through but driving around within the area. It is not at all uncommon, for instance, to see a car pull away from a space on Green Lanes, drive twenty metres, and park up again at the side of the road. Further I am sure we all know local residents who think nothing of getting in their cars and driving half a mile or a mile to visit the supermarket, a restaurant, friend etc etc.
Stopping those two sets of drivers from using certain roads will reduce traffic on those roads but will not largely reduce traffic overall because the first group still needs to get from A to B and the second still sees driving as preferable to staying at home, walking, cycling, or taking a bus. The still-present queues on the non-LTN roads (such as Belmont) are testament to that.
Thus, if there are to be inhibiting factors they need to be ones which inhibit driving per se, as opposed to inhibiting entry into certain LA-created enclaves. Whether such factors will ever be (can be?) introduced is something which almost certainly requires input from / introduction by national government, however.
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